12/10/2023
Cannabis and injury risk
New research out of Canada has examined the link between cannabis use and workplace injury, finding that the risk of injury was doubled for people who use cannabis at work or within two hours of starting work – but for people who use cannabis outside that timeframe there was no difference in injury rate compared to non-cannabis users.
Published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, the researchers used data from 2745 Canadian workers participating in a longitudinal study over three years.
Participants were asked a simple question: during the past 12 months, have you experienced an incident that resulted in injury to yourself while working?
They were also asked about their cannabis use over the past year. Respondents who said they had used cannabis were also asked their frequency of cannabis use within two hours before work, during work, and during work breaks.
Of the respondents, 65.5% did not use cannabis in the past year, 27.4% reported non-workplace use, and 7.0% reported workplace use (including in the two hours before work).
Overall, 11.3% reported having suffered a workplace injury in the last year, made up of 22.0% of workers in safety-sensitive jobs and 4.9% of workers in other jobs.
Workplace use of cannabis was associated with a 1.97 times greater likelihood of having suffered a work injury, while non-workplace use of cannabis showed no statistically elevated relationship with injury.
The study’s authors say the results bring clarity to the question of whether cannabis use contributes to workplace injury.
“Findings suggest that, when thinking about the potential occupational safety impacts of a worker’s cannabis use, it is important to consider when that use is taking place.
“More specifically, only use in close temporal proximity to work appears to be a risk factor for workplace injuries, not use away from work.”
July 31, 2023 (Toronto, Ont.)—Are workers who use cannabis at greater risk of having an injury at work? Yes, but only those workers who use cannabis during or before a work shift. Workers who only use cannabis outside of work hours are at no greater risk of getting injured at work than workers who...
